The Uncanny Valley

Pinky Thakkar (silent “h”), an engineer from Mumbai, started the Web site www.pronouncenames.com after she moved to San Jose, Calif., and mispronounced the “J” in “San Jose,” not giving it the “H” sound used in Spanish words. Properly pronouncing person and place names proved nearly impossible for Ms. Thakkar and her friends from abroad, she says.

She also is looking to expand the site’s ability to provide audio pronunciations based on a user’s typed-in guess. For example, if a user heard the Indian surname “Sridharan,” but had no idea how to pronounce it, he or she could enter a guess such as “shree the run” and the accurate spelling would appear.